Google's 20-Year Usenet Timeline 412
theRG writes "Google just released its 20-Year Usenet Timeline. Among the highlights: First Mac rumor, first 'me too' post, Tim Berners-Lee's announcement of the Web, and Linus' announcement of Linux."
Alas they didn't get the first (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Alas they didn't get the first (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Er... (Score:3, Insightful)
The posts are about aircraft, so are the ads. You don't think there are clerks manually selecting the ads for every search you do, do you?
Re:Er... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Er... (Score:3, Informative)
As I said, it wasn't called "Usenet" then. Just a command line "news" running on a BSD system, as I dimly recall. About 5 articles a day. As a lowly 2nd year student at Melbourne Uni, an early adopter of Unix. I didn't have much access time or privileges.
I note that both your and my posts have been modded "flamebait". How perverse.
Linus (Score:5, Funny)
I can (well, almost) hear you asking yourselves "why?". Hurd will be out in a year (or two, or next month, who knows), and I've already got minix.
The Hurd. Beautiful.
Re:Linus (Score:4, Funny)
If you write programs for linux today, you shouldn't have too many surprises when you just recompile them for Hurd in the 21st century.
As if anyone would want to compile something for Hurd in the 21st century
Re:Linus (Score:5, Funny)
get a high grade for such a design
Re:Linus (Score:3, Insightful)
The best approach for the real world seems to be a hybrid design, either adding monolithic elements to a micokernel design, such as in OSX and NT, or adding some microkernel concepts to a monolithic kernel, such as the module system added to Linux. Either approach will have some of the key benefits of a microkernel design without sacrif
Oddly familiar. (Score:2, Funny)
This has been around for a while... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This has been around for a while... (Score:2)
... sort of (Score:2, Interesting)
It's only sort of a dupe. The timeline wasn't *directly* mentioned in the original article [slashdot.org].
That said, I think we need to award a 5 yard penalty against the editor for not following the proper rules when posting a dupe (i.e. one must post blatant dupes - any attempt to be clever is against the rules and is very much frowned upon).
Re:This has been around for a while... (Score:5, Informative)
The last item on the list behind the link:
11 Dec 2001 Google offers 20-year Usenet Archive
Which makes this story not only a dupe, but 3 years old as well...
If we keep this up we'll start seeing dupe John Katz posts any time now.
Re:This has been around for a while... (Score:5, Funny)
As if... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:This has been around for a while... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:This has been around for a while... (Score:4, Informative)
No, the timeline featured in today's dupe was also linked in the old post. Same page: http://www.google.com/googlegroups/archive_announc e_20.html [google.com] both times.
To Ron at Rutgers: (Score:5, Funny)
Hurd (Score:5, Funny)
It cracks me up every time.
Re:Hurd (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hurd (Score:3, Funny)
Justice Must Be Done... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Justice Must Be Done... (Score:3, Funny)
Alex.
Heh (Score:2, Funny)
I love him for that..
Re:Heh (Score:3, Funny)
My prediction for the near future. (Score:2)
Google drops Usenet.
Re:My prediction for the near future. (Score:3, Insightful)
Google paid good money for Usenet. (Or, more specifically, for the archive from Dejanews.)
Granted, they seem to be doing bad things with it (the groups-beta thing really kinda bites), but I don't see them ditching it -- it fits in very well with their key business (searching), and I doubt it costs them much money (compared to their web search, for example) to keep going.
And it's useful -- when looking for answers to technical issues (like `I got *this* error. How do I fix i
Re:My prediction for the near future. (Score:5, Interesting)
Some of their own statistics show that most groups have low activity: Group-Society Activity High (167) Low (6712) Medium (137)
All of the other groups show low activity as the largest numbers. They simply do not have the eyeballs hitting the groups.
They do not show Adsense ads in groups, at least none that I've found. It's all paid for by ad revenue from other Google areas.
The groups that are not moderated have degenerated into ad spam fests, driving off people interested in those groups topics.
I think that when Alexa shows less than 1% of users, Google will decide it's no longer worth keeping.
I do agree with you that Usenet can be useful for finding answers, I use a combination of Google search and Groups search. I still think Google will rethink Groups, either dumping it, or correcting the problems. (I'm leaning toward them dumping it).
Re:My prediction for the near future. (Score:2)
Linux discussion groups [chatmag.com]
Feh! (Score:2, Interesting)
Usenet is now dead without an exclusive big news (Score:2)
Such a nice young man (Score:5, Insightful)
utilities/library functions for minix. If your efforts are freely
distributable (under copyright or even public domain), I'd like to hear
from you, so I can add them to the system. I'm using Earl Chews estdio
right now (thanks for a nice and working system Earl), and similar works
will be very wellcome. Your (C)'s will of course be left intact. Drop me
a line if you are willing to let me use your code.
It's no accident that Linux was such an pleasant project to hack on way back when, Linus is just such a humble and polite person. He still is today. What ever happened to that? These days you're lucky to get a reply to an email when offering to contribute code to an open source project, let alone someone actually thanking you for going to the effort of making something for others to enjoy.
Re:Such a nice young man (Score:2)
Yeah, polite especially what he said about those nice SCO people.
;)
Re:Such a nice young man (Score:5, Insightful)
A good friend of mine works on Linux and it's scary watching him open his mailbox. We're best mates and I don't often get timely responses to emails I send him!
His email is at least fairly focused. I imagine people who work on things that are more user facing (GNOME, KDE etc) must get a whole lot of stuff coming their way...
Re:Such a nice young man (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Such a nice young man (Score:3, Informative)
This is true... (Score:2)
Re:This is true... (Score:2)
Broken link (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Broken link (Score:4, Informative)
Map of usenet (Score:5, Funny)
current map of usenet done with ascii art.
I'll give $5.00 to the first person to provide an updated ascii art usenet map.
Re:Map of usenet (Score:5, Funny)
|
|----Usenet----Internet----Me
|
Warez
Re:Map of usenet (Score:3, Informative)
So, about that $5.00...
Autocad's Acquisition of Xanadu Hypertext (Score:3, Interesting)
PS: There unfortunately was no mention anywhere in Google's archive of Mark Miller's right-shift-one of the Xanadu vocabulary, which turned Project Xanadu into Project Babel.
You know.. (Score:2, Funny)
Just Released???? (Score:5, Informative)
From the linked page:
11 Dec 2001 Google offers 20-year Usenet Archive
VT100 (Score:2, Funny)
Re:VT100 (Score:2, Informative)
Redundant out-of-date copies? (Score:3, Funny)
"This summary does not describe the many exciting possibilities opened up by the WWW project, such as efficient document caching, the reduction of redundant out-of-date copies,..."
Glad to see that those "out-of-date copies' have been reduced. I don't think I could imagine how many out of date documents there would be in the world if we didn't have the web.
I'm suprised though that they didn't see the exciting possiblities opened up for online porn. Guess nobody saw that one coming.
More than 20 years (Score:2)
Re:More than 20 years (Score:2)
y2k prediction (Score:3, Interesting)
Sex Stories? (Score:3, Funny)
A giggle-inducer (Score:5, Funny)
I can't really imagine waiting until 1997 to see all nine parts of the Star Wars series.
How about waiting until 2005 to see the first six?
Re:A giggle-inducer (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, I wish we could go back in time and tell him not to look forward to it too much...
Coming Soon! (Score:5, Funny)
and,
Re:Coming Soon! (Score:4, Interesting)
Some (humble) recommendations:
* First "Pancake Ninja" troll
* First "Ogg the open source caveman" post
* First "Jon Kats Sucks" post
* First appearance of the Bill Gates Borg icon
Re:Coming Soon! (Score:2, Funny)
The new google groups (Score:3, Interesting)
I would rather prefer a "perfect" archive, where anyone looking could get a copy of the intact document that was posted at that time.
I wonder if a balance can be achieved between email harvesting and protecting the original documents.
Re:The new google groups (Score:2)
Re:The new google groups (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The new google groups (Score:3, Insightful)
It's moronic to hide them in Google's interface when any spammer interested can harvest them directly from a newsfeed. Google still forces you to use an active address when registering to post, and the spammers do harvest that, regardless that's it's munged in Google's interface. And I rather doubt spammers really want a bunch of 20-year-old addresses -- and if anyone is still at the same address that long
Stallman's announcement of GNU (Score:3, Informative)
The link 'Sep 1983 Stallman's announcement of GNU' doesn't appear to work, but if you search google groups for '771@mit-eddie.UUCP' you can find it.
Re:Stallman's announcement of GNU (Score:2, Interesting)
mod parent up (Score:2)
This is Bill Gates first post (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This is Bill Gates first post (Score:5, Funny)
10 POKE eye_socket
20 POKE eye_socket+1
30 goto 10
Re:This is Bill Gates first post (Score:2)
5 SOUND "whooop_whooop_whooop.wav"
25 SOUND "blink.wav"
28 SOUND "yeahop!.wav"
29 REM Stooges rule...
Publication Date???? (Score:3, Informative)
I want to see the first spam from 94 (Score:2)
Also the first goatse.cx pic on slashdot and its replies for those who have never seen it might be hilarious as well.
Trolling is immature I know but I remember a few of the replies like "GOOOD SFDS*&^~!"
I think slashdot posted this article 2 years ago with other links like the first IBM pc and a new os called dos. Good stuff.
Googles Usenet search is really really bad. (Score:4, Informative)
Search by reverse date is missing.
Threaded and hourly view is missing, too much crap on the screen.
Side bars in the way. (Again more crap)
Pretty much, I browse a few groups, but with perlmonks and other major discussion groups going to forums and leaving usenet, its more of a legacy I still enjoy than can use.
Always wished people using bbforums would have an archived usenet feed just to keep a history. Also you dont need to belong to the forum.
I feel forum's killed usenet, and forums are rather weak.
How many forums are you on? Slashdot and about 6 dozen more.
While im glad Google has taken over, I wish they could at least make a forum interface that doesnt suck.
It may take a disaster to learn from the mistakes. (Score:3, Insightful)
And I don't see evidence that people have largely learned the lesson from when Dejanews went away and Google had not yet brought up Deja's database -- the lesson being that Usenet is of value and Usenet article collections need to be mirrored and kept up to date by multiple independent administrators. Placing all of those metaphorical eggs in one
Where's the first... (Score:2)
Peace
someone explain BIFF to me (Score:2)
Re:someone explain BIFF to me (Score:2)
I think it was named after the author's dog, who apparently barked at the mailman.
First Mention of Slashdot.org (Score:4, Interesting)
This will link to it: http://tinyurl.com/6sz2j [tinyurl.com]
Why is it in a strange language?
First English mention is Nov 14, 1997.
http://tinyurl.com/5snrm [tinyurl.com]
Re:First Mention of Slashdot.org (Score:2)
Nov 4, 1997:First mention of slashdot.org. [google.com] Why is it in a strange language?
First English mention is on Nov 14, 1997. [google.com]
As I understand it services like tinyurl are designed to make it easy to give a large URL to someone when you can't present it electronically.
First mention of Star Wars Episode 6... (Score:2)
Snippet from this [google.com] Usenet post from 1982:
I wish Lucas & Co. would get the thing going a little faster. I can't really imagine waiting until 1997 to see all nine parts of the Star Wars Series.
1997?!?
Douglas Adams' post, forever the optimist. (Score:5, Interesting)
seems like it might interest people - for instance, it looks as if the HHGG
movie is finally coming after the shelf after 10 years.
This post was made in 1993.
Reply?! (Score:2)
Anyone catch the www response (Score:5, Funny)
From Douglas Adam's first post: (Score:2)
"I'll try and post news here from time to time if it seems like it might interest people - for instance, it looks as if the HHGG movie is finally coming after the shelf after 10 years."
Heh.
Britney's first mention a hit? (Score:2)
wide-set brown eyes and a broad smile. "It was all I'd really
wanted since I was 8. They called on the phone and said, 'You're
going to be a Mouseketeer,' and I just started screaming. 'I'm so
excited, I'm so excited,' and jumping up and down."
-snip-
The Mouseketeers don't wear Mouse
ears and uniforms; they wear colorful, stylish clothes. They sing
the old theme ("M-I-C -- 'see you real soon' -- K-E-Y -- 'Why?
Because we like you' -- M-O-U-S-E"), but
Too bad they don't carry the binaries groups (Score:2)
Personal First Post? (Score:2)
Alas poor BIX... sniff
First Review of the IBM PC (Score:2)
For $ 1,565 you get a keyboard and logic unit with 16K RAM and a Basic interpreter in 40K ROM. A cassette interface is built in, I think; but no diskette or monitor at this price -- you use your TV set... A "business configuration" with 64K, dual diskettes, printer, and "color graphics" goes for about $4,500.
Yikes! Hard to imagine people bought those things!
Where is... (Score:2)
This has been around for a couple of years.. (Score:2)
First Y2k solution (Score:5, Funny)
"Good grief!" said I. "What happens in January of 1980?" She turned pale and admitted she had considered that before but managed to put it out of her mind. "So why not go ahead and fix it now?" I asked.
She pointed out that fixing it would require expanding the demand deposit master record format, a mammoth undertaking. About a billion COBOL programs would have to be recompiled. At this shop we were still on cards and a rush compile took about a week. "You want to do that?" she inquired. This time I turned pale. We onsidered our options, knowing that one or the other of us would be called upon to fix the problem. And you know what we did?
First, I modified the daily demand deposit program with code that checked for the date and about mid-1979 started printed warnings on the console of what would happen come new year. Then the systems analyst and I got new jobs. This is known as stepwise interactive development."
Dejanews can't really tell us about first anything (Score:3, Interesting)
eBay announcement (Score:3, Interesting)
$400?!? Holy crap
Re:Huh? (Score:2, Interesting)
20-year Usenet Archive and 20-year Usenet Timeline are different things.
Re:Huh? (Score:2)
Re:Huh? (Score:2, Informative)
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/google.public
Re:The essential is somewhere there, but.... (Score:2)
there is NO match fot
Re:GNU link? (Score:2)
Thanks to Microsoft, yes, you can enjoy viruses and spyware and other crap via the miracle of email. So don't use it for email! I don't anymore.
Maybe their new post numbering (Score:2)
(didn't look at the thread, just grumbing about the groops interface chaneges..)
Re:Wow. (Score:2)
yeah, this is pretty ridiculous - surely a rudimentary search by the admin could have picked up the dupe [slashdot.org] ... wow, look what the first hit on google brings up [google.com]! Come on, timothy, keep up! :)
Re:The AIDS post (Score:2)